The Night Brother

by Rosie Garland

  ‘Oh,’ she gasps, colouring. ‘I meant no offence. I did not wish – I am sorry.’

  A wave of remorse sweeps over me. ‘No. I am sorry,’ I say. ‘Truly I am. That was most ungenerous. I took a tumble on the Museum steps and bruises put me into a fearsomely bad temper.’

  ‘The Museum?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love the Museum! Who would not be entranced? Did you see the Lycian casts?’

  ‘Yes!’ I exclaim, unable to conceal my pleasure. I scold myself for behaving so openly with a stranger. I am most unlike myself today. ‘They are fascinating,’ I add with more self-possession.

  ‘I am in a fearful hurry to see them,’ she says.

  ‘They took my breath away.’

  As I speak, the truth of the statement crashes over my head with the force of a wave. I clap my hand to my brow and sway dizzily. Her hand grasps my arm, firm and strong.

  ‘My dear girl,’ she breathes. ‘Are you well?’

  ‘I must go.’

  ‘Of course,’ she says, her eyes warm with concern. ‘If you think you are fit to walk.’

  ‘My mother is missing me,’ I say, squirming at the lie.

  ‘Perhaps you will attend another rally?’ she says. ‘There’s a meeting at the Free Trade Hall on Thursday.’

  I ache to cry yes! The idea of spending time in the rousing company of this woman – I correct myself sternly – these women thrills me to the core. However, I remind myself that the reason for her attention is to garner support. I am a face in the crowd who may be of benefit to the cause, nothing more. Much as I’d like to loiter, I place the pamphlet in my bag and thank her politely. Taking up this grand lady’s time will not bring me one inch nearer to my doorstep.

  I hasten away, breasting the tide of city crowds. When I awoke this morning, I could not have guessed the change that today would bring. My world has tilted on its axis, towards the sun. So what if I loom head and shoulders above other women? No longer will I tuck my chin into my chest in a pointless attempt at concealment.

  I take a deep breath and for the first time in my life, stand up straight. My neck cracks as the muscles assume untried positions. A well-dressed youth gawps at the spectacle of a giantess striding along the pavement. Yes, I think. I’m tall. I have big feet, bigger hands. I am who I am, and that’s that. Hurt falls from my shoulders like the ill-fitting coat it always was. I experience the stirrings of an unfamiliar emotion. It dawns on me that it is pride.

  The first quarter-mile passes swiftly enough. The second I am a little less sprightly, and the last hundred yards I feel the lights of my body extinguishing themselves one by one as the sustaining effects of the tea and biscuits wear off.

  I enter The Comet and greet Ma and Nana in a perfunctory fashion. Ma attempts to distract me, bleating that Uncle is on his way and someone must prepare his supper and how that person won’t be her. Answering yes, Ma, no, Ma and presently, I take the stairs two at a time, slam the door to my room and launch myself on to the mattress. My thoughts whirl, and the room whirls with me.

  The unimaginable has occurred: I have seen my freakish nature displayed, not as a skulking footnote in a medical journal of the diseased and abnormal, but in a museum of all places. If that were not sufficient cause for joy, my soul has been lifted into a rapture at the suffrage rally. Prior to this afternoon I regarded that cause as worthy, but of no direct consequence in the course of my life. All that has changed. I make a promise to myself: I will find a way to attend another meeting. I do not know where or when, but soon. A profound alchemy has been wrought this afternoon. It is an explosive combination.

  I am so distracted that it takes a while before it sinks in that my light-headedness is not hunger but Gnome. He’s far too early. The sun is still up.

  Move aside, he growls.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s barely suppertime. I’m not ready. Give me an hour.’

  Since when did the likes of you need an hour? You will move over.

  ‘I will not. Not today.’

  You have no choice.

  ‘Maybe I do.’

  His laughter ripples through me like a bout of indigestion. What’s come over you all of a sudden? We’ve always done it this way.

  ‘Things change.’

  And some things don’t. We’re saddled with each other, sister dear.

  ‘I am not your sister. You know that as well as I do.’

  As though they are a pair of evening gloves, Gnome slides his arms into mine and proceeds to rescue his breeches from under the bed. However, I have not fully quit the building, so to speak, and I shove them out of reach. He picks them up. I throw them down.

  ‘Stop this nonsense,’ he snaps. ‘Give me my body this instant.’

  ‘It’s not your body,’ I say. ‘It is ours.’

  ‘Mine, mine, mine,’ he chants.

  ‘For heaven’s sake. You’re acting like a baby.’

  Neither of us yet has the upper hand. If he’s going to be childish, so shall I. He shoves one leg into the trousers. I twist them about-face. It takes a quarter-minute for him to realise they’re on backwards.

  ‘Oh, Gnome,’ I titter. ‘You are so cack-handed.’

  Undeterred, he grasps the waistband and hops about, trying to poke his foot inside. I unbalance him and he topples on to the bed, to an affronted squeak from the mattress.

  ‘You put your right foot in,’ I sing, enjoying myself immensely. ‘And then you take it out, and wag it, and wag it, and wag it all about.’

  ‘Give me my trousers!’ he shrieks, frustration fizzing like ginger beer. The legs are bunched around his ankles. The harder he tries to free himself, the tighter they tangle. ‘I’ve had it up to here with you. A millstone around my neck, so you are. I never asked for things to be this way.’

  ‘You think I did?’

  ‘Just get out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I said so. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be free.’

  ‘Gnome! You can’t turf me aside like I don’t matter.’

  ‘You don’t. You’re as dull as ditchwater and thick as two short planks. Shut your moaning and shift.’

  Would it kill him to be polite, just once, instead of talking to me like I’m dirt on his boot? It seems particularly galling, today of all days. Do I have no vote in the governance of my own flesh? Must I bow to this petty patriarch? The tumultuous events of the afternoon set a spark to the timid embers of my heart. I clasp my hands behind my back.

  ‘No,’ I say firmly.

  He fumbles helplessly, trying to tease my fingers loose. I clench them into fists. We hover half in, half out of each other: that no man’s land between our two selves. The meaning of the phrase strikes home with grim humour. To be a land with no man in it. What a paradise that would be.

  ‘If you don’t lay off this minute, I’ll—’

  ‘You’ll what, Gnome?’ I’ll stop teasing him presently, I tell myself. Of course I’ll step aside, I always do. I want the smallest taste of victory, that’s all. ‘Come on,’ I sneer. ‘Show me what you’re made of. Grind my face into the dirt, put your heel on my neck and hold me there. Show me who’s master. If you can, of course.’

  ‘I can! I can!’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Can.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I sigh. ‘I don’t think you’re here at all. I am talking to myself. After all, that’s what girls do, isn’t it? Muttering all kinds of silly notions and fancies. That’s what you are: a scrap of my imagination.’

  ‘I am not! Shut up!’ he shrieks.

  ‘Shut up, shut up!’ I squawk in mimicry. Goading Gnome is beneath me, but I can’t stop. ‘I see you. Waiting at the threshold, unable to step over it into my body. I could raise my hand and swat you aside. Not that I need to exert myself. You’re pathetic.’

  ‘Just you wait!’ he squeaks. ‘I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget. I’ll kick you out. I’ll stamp you flat, and when I’ve done so, I’ll never let you back in, never
!’

  Silence falls. I hear the plink of rain from the cracked gutter above the window. Every hair on the back of my neck stands up.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ he leers. He wraps his hands around my throat and squeezes till my eyes sparkle. ‘Look what I have in store for you.’

  He shoves me to the brink of extinction and dangles me over the abyss. Hell floods out of the pit, stretches its jaws wide. Frantic with terror, I twist the budding flesh between my legs but cannot stop the swelling. He pokes me in the eye; I box his ears. He punches me in the stomach; I bite his arm. Inch by inch, he gains the upper hand. In the struggle my fingers strike the bedside table and close around a hat-pin. Without thinking, I swing my fist in a wide arc and stab myself in the thigh.

  Hell holds its breath.

  Gnome grinds to a halt. He tries to rally, but when I jab myself a second time I taste panic and it is not my own. I grasp his private parts. They are shrinking: a pebble, a snail, a marble, a cherry stone. He is so small that a midwife would scratch her head if asked whether we were girl or boy. I can’t quite believe it. Gnome is seeping away, and I made it happen.

  ‘You didn’t know I could do that, did you?’ I crow. There is no answer. ‘Well, I can. Aren’t you scared?’

  No, he quavers.

  He clings desperately to our body, but his hold is slipping. I could leave it there; could permit him to slink away with some dignity remaining. Power makes me cruel.

  ‘Listening to you is like listening to an old man’s farts,’ I jeer. ‘When it comes to a stand-up fight, you’re off with your tail between your legs. Look,’ I say, brandishing the hat-pin. ‘You’re full of hot air, Gnome. One jab and poof! You’re gone.’

  I pierce my thigh a third time. His voice shrinks to a mouse-squeak.

  No.

  ‘That’s all you are. A little prick.’

  Again. His voice is the buzz of a fly.

  No.

  Again. The whine of a gnat.

  No.

  Again. He winks out, like a snuffed candle.

  I sprawl on the bed, chest heaving as though I’ve run a mile. What have I done? I’ve won, that’s what. My brain seethes with the possibility that I’ve chanced upon the key to my salvation. Can I be forever female and fix myself in that estate by such a simple ruse? Can I chase Gnome away with little more than a hat-pin, such as I might easily keep about my person? Temptation spreads its peacock cloak across my path. To live free from the fear of discovery. To live free of the change. I can be normal. Ordinary. This is the cure, the true cure, and I have stumbled upon it by myself.

  The shadows thicken as night comes on. Up to this moment, the best I hoped for was to keep my head down and remain invisible and unmolested. This changes everything. I turn the pin in my fingers. It is barely marked with blood. For the price of a drop or two I am mistress of my existence.

  I wonder how Ma and Nana can be unaware of this solution to all of our problems. The answer falls upon me like a coal sack down a chute. They do know. Ma limits Arthur’s appearances, perhaps by employing the same trick. As for my hypocrite of a grandmother, I can’t recall one single, solitary occasion when I’ve seen her other half. Has she done this to banish my grandfather entirely? I am confused. I don’t expect honesty – or anything approaching it – from Ma. But Nana? How can I trust her again if she has hidden the key to freedom so wilfully?

  I imagine that the stimulation of my thoughts will preclude sleep entirely. However, I slumber more soundly than I can remember, untroubled by dreams or awakenings. I wake with neither boots on my feet, nor grime under my fingernails.

  I go to the window, rub dirt from the pane and watch the sun come up on this, the first day of my new life. The clouds to the east peel away and the colour of the horizon deepens, flushing pink to scarlet. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. I scoff at the superstition. This morning sees me the luckiest of creatures. The star of misfortune blighting my life is turning to the good at last.

  Mill chimneys press their silhouettes against the sky as though cut from black card, in crisper and crisper relief as the light grows in intensity. The early shift is heading to the brewery, sparks flying as their heels strike the pavement. I can join them, can become a face blending into the fog of city crowds. I can settle down, take tea with my neighbours in china cups. A real woman, the same as every other, with all the concomitant chatter of babies and hats and gloves and fans. I can be unnoticeable. Normal.

  I shudder. Now that I have the choice, it strikes me that I don’t want to be the same, not in that way, which seems to be trading one shackle for another. I want liberation, not verisimilitude. The two are entirely different.

  Of course, I won’t shut Gnome out entirely. That’s the sort of low trick he’d pull. I am far too generous-hearted. I’ll let him run around and indulge in foolish escapades, let off boyish steam. But I will say when and where. It is only fitting. As for Ma and Nana, they’ve concealed this cure. I owe them nothing. I’ll wait a day before telling them of my discovery. Maybe two.

  A slice of orange appears above the line of distant roofs. I have the oddest notion that the misery which has stifled my life is rising up with the sun, to be dissolved in the warmth of the day. I shade my eyes. A great calm settles.

  I’ve suffered under Gnome’s selfish yoke for long enough. Things are about to change. If he can save money, so can I, and every penny honestly. I’ll hide it better, too. I’ll learn a false smile and serve out my sentence under this roof. If Ma and Nana can withhold the secret of liberty, then I can withhold my plans. When I’m good and ready I’ll pack my bags, leave The Comet and not look back. I’ll take lodgings and work for my living. For the first time I have a choice.

  GNOME

  1904

  I live in the cage of her curfew. She sets the hours and if I don’t keep to them she sticks in the spike. I am her dog brought to heel, docked of tail and teeth. Every night I stretch my leash. Every morning I slink back. There is no choice but obedience.

  Tonight, I dream of walking free. Free of skewers, free of pins.

  The streets unroll beneath my feet and carry me to Pomona Docks. Great ships hug the wharves, their holds bursting with the world’s freight. Grain elevators stretch to the clouds, taller than the houses on my street: taller than two houses, three houses, any number of our cramped kennels. I’m not interested in bananas, nor sugar, nor all the perfumes of Arabia. My eye follows the keen line of the canal striking westwards: to Liverpool, to the sea, to everywhere that isn’t here.

  This is a dream and I can do anything I want. I can step off the quayside, stroll to Eastham and hopscotch the Atlantic until I set foot in – wherever it is I choose to set foot. Buffalo Bill will meet me in America, pull me up on to his saddle and we will gallop away, whooping, with feathers in our hair.

  There’s a packet-boat dawdling in Mode Wheel Locks. Rubbish skulks along the wall: a stoved-in orange crate, snapped spars, bottles without messages. The lock-keeper cranks the great lever; chains clank, cogs grind and the water level drops. The debris takes a sluggish step forward only to be shoved back by the incoming surge.

  I slip down the ladder set into the wall. I’m careful to wrap my shirtsleeves around my hands, for the rungs are slimy. Step by step I go, balancing speed with sure-footedness. The boat nestles close.

  ‘Come,’ says the pilot, voice rippling the surface of the canal. ‘Have a drink with us.’ His accent is so thick I could spread it on toast, his face burnished mahogany. ‘Jump over.’

  ‘It’s too far.’

  ‘I will catch you, boy.’

  He holds out a hand. I take it: dry and stiff as planed wood. He pulls me on board and I huddle in the shelter of a coil of rope, piled as high as a grown man. I taste singed oil, the sick smell of bilge, the faint but persistent odour of the privy.

  ‘Running away, sonny?’

  ‘I’m going to America,’ I say.

  ‘America!’ he roars, teeth glinting. He p
ounds his thighs with his hands. ‘America!’

  There’s chuckling from within the cabin, his shipmates joining in as if it’s the funniest thing they ever heard. They repeat the word over and over until it loses all meaning and becomes a handful of syllables rattling around the deck.

  ‘Better to be home,’ declares my captain, more soberly. ‘You have been away too long.’ I don’t ask him how he knows. ‘You are too young to be going so far.’

  ‘I’m seventeen. I’m a man.’

  He laughs, so gently it might be breathing. He stops before I can be sure. ‘Very well,’ he says. ‘If you wish it.’

  ‘I do wish it,’ I mutter.

  I wish I didn’t sound so ungrateful. He sticks a gnawed pipe between his teeth and sucks hard, harder, until the tobacco sizzles into life. I shiver with something that is not the chill breathed out by the water.

  ‘Here,’ he says.

  He throws a scarf, which falls across my shoulders. I give it a sneering glance as if to say I don’t need such a babyish thing. When he’s not looking I wrap it around my throat. The wool is coarse and smells of the dirty necks of many men, but it is deliciously warm. I hug my knees closer to my chest.

  In my dream I drowse, lullabied by the chugging of the engine. The Ship Canal hauls us seawards on its pewter rope. Ships hoot, calling one to the other. The pilot puffs on his pipe, singing snatches of a song I’ve never heard and don’t understand. We steam towards Liverpool: from Barton Bridge to Irlam Locks and under Cadishead Viaduct; Warburton Bridge through Latchford. We pass Woolston Weir, Warrington, Widnes and take the long, swinging sweep past the Weaver Sluices, beyond which the ocean awaits and I can leap off this stinking piece of earth.

  Perhaps it is the way of dreams, for in the wink of an eye I am at Eastham. The engine clunks to a halt. Water shuffles back and forth, slapping the flank of the packet-boat.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’

  The pilot grins. ‘We wait.’ He points at the iron giant blocking the way ahead. It’s not enough to cool my impatience.

  ‘We can slip past it. Come on. We’ll never make it to America if we stay here.’